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[/media-credit]Kyle Busch wouldn’t say that he impressed himself in the way that he won Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout but he thought it was pretty cool.
After what sure were going to be hard wrecks on two different occasions Busch was able to save his No. 18 M&M’s Camry from trouble and win the season opening race for the first time in his career. Whereas he should have been on a hook in the garage Busch beat defending champion Tony Stewart coming off turn four in a photo finish, 0.013 seconds.
“Man, it was exciting from where I was at a few times certainly,” Busch said afterwards. “Can’t say enough about all these guys, bringing out a backup car like that making another fast M&M Camry out of Joe Gibbs Racing, come out here and winning the thing. First time might have been luck. I’m going to say the second time was all skill.
“It was interesting from my seat. I was steering, stabbing, braking, gassing, everything in between, trying to keep the thing straight, get it back under control.”
The first of Busch’s trouble came on lap 48 when Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson got into him in turn two. Busch’s car slid down the apron and Busch was able to regain control twice as it tried to get sideways. In doing so he and the drivers who slowed behind him lost ground to the leaders who sped away. The caution never flew and Busch was left playing catch up.
“Hard to say whether you impressed yourself,” said Busch. “Never thought about that. It was certainly cool. I enjoyed it. I wouldn’t recommend everybody do it everyday. But certainly it got my attention. I was just glad that I was able to pull through it, to be honest with you, to be able to straighten it back out, keep going. Check my mirror. Everybody was stabbing the brakes, trying to slow down, thinking I’m going to wreck. We got it back going, they’re like, huh, all right.”
That included Stewart who had a front row seat. The three-time champion said it was one of the coolest things that he’s ever seen and that it was also cool to see a driver come back from big moments such as those during the race and win. Even though it would be at his expense in the end.
Said Stewart, “He had to catch it three times before he saved it. You get 3400 pounds moving like that, to catch it once was pretty big, to get away from it and catch it again was big and the third time was big. That’s three big moments in one corner and he never quit driving. There’s a lot of guys that wouldn’t have caught that. He did a fantastic job with that save.”
Busch chuckled when hearing about Stewart’s praise and said that it was probably because of the shower of sparks that flew. To Busch though he had gotten lucky and it was hard to explain.
Then it happened again with two laps remaining. This time it was Jeff Gordon who got into Busch and as Busch again went into a long slid and save Gordon went back up the track and collected others. He ended up flipping and barrel rolling towards the entrance of pit road.
“Three and four with Jeff Gordon behind me, I got him pushing on me through one and two making me really loose,” described Busch. “I’m glad the straightaway came when it did because otherwise I was going to spin out. He got back on me a few more times on the straightaway moving me around, I think trying to move me out of the way. Getting into three, hit me again, hit me on the left rear corner, spun me out. I don’t know what the deal was there.”
The lengthy caution gave Busch plenty of time to head to pit road for more repairs before lining back up for the restart. NASCAR had deemed the race not yet to be over and there would be a green-white-checkered finish.
“It was a lot going on,” he said. “It’s so hard to explain everything you do, but you’re doing it all at the same time. That’s just the way it is. Certainly I was like, ‘Man, that was pretty lucky the first time.’ It happened the second I’m like, ‘Well, I guess I’m lucky again. We’ll see where we end up when the checkered flag flies.’”
On the restart Busch was eighth but coming to the white flag was already on the back bumper of Stewart who he pushed to the lead and away from the field. Using the two-car tango Busch and Stewart were able to separate from the field and decide the race themselves as Busch pulled off the pass coming off turn four and to the finish line.
The victory was the first for both Busch and Toyota in the event but fifth for Joe Gibbs Racing. It was also the closest finish in Budweiser Shootout history and it gave Busch a nice shot in the arm after how his 2011 season ended.
“It is great that we were able to come out first race back in the M&M’s car and get back to victory lane,” he said. “It means a lot to myself and this team, Joe Gibbs Racing. Can’t say enough about all the support around, M&M’s being back, us being able to get to victory lane like we did, carry that Toyota right through victory lane like we did.
“Certainly there’s situations and stuff like that that got really tense out there and really hectic. You’re not sure how you’re going to come out of it sometimes. You just do the best you can with what you got going on at that particular moment, try to come through it. Sometimes we were pushing three rows deep, I was in the middle, I thought I could spin out on the straightaway.”
Busch though, as many others enjoyed Saturday’s racing, which was back to the big pack instead of two-by-two for the entire event. While he says that it may have looked crazy it was because of how short the race was and that next weekend’s Daytona 500 will either be as crazy or boring as the drivers make it. At the end though when it comes to deciding the winner, things will be just as interesting.
“There’s going to be moments like that in the 500,” he said. “There’s going to be more cars. It’s going to be 50 times more pressure packed at the end of the race like that and more intense because it is the Daytona 500. There’s going to be guys going for everything that it’s worth.”
